In this blog entry, ISSE student, Ben, shares with us his experience in his journey to Japan!
Nice to meet you all again. I'm Ben. Unlike last time, as I am writing this blog, I'm sitting in a classroom on the second floor of Create Core on the BKC campus. Yes, after two years, I finally came to Japan!!
As an international student enrolled in 2020, I was surprised that it was already 2022 when I arrived in Japan as a student for the first time. I had to wait for two years because of the epidemic. Meanwhile, I had to spend half of my college life in ZOOM class. Therefore, the following two years of studying and living in Japan is a kind of unprecedented expectation for me.
And the other for the first time to come to school students, I, as a "new" university of third year student for all familiar and curiosity. For the first time in the true sense into the campus, walked into the classroom for the first time, saw the classmates and friends for the first time, a lot of different feelings, let me come in. Familiar, strange, and curious about is filled with my heart. So, apart from the happiness and curiosity, the unique Japanese lifestyle did make me feel a little hard in the first week of my arrival. Next, I will describe how I spent two weeks in Japan to settle down and gradually get used to the living conditions here.
When lots of paperwork was done, a student with two huge luggage suitcases and a backpack walked out of Osaka's Kansai airport and boarded a bus to the quarantined hotel. When I was curious about the night scene outside the window, I suddenly remembered what furniture was in the apartment I had rented a long time ago after the end of my isolation. When I looked at the mobile phone showing that I could not search for the communication signal, I found that there were still many things to do on this “special trip”.
Congratulations! When you read this blog, you can make some adjustments based on my experience. First of all, when you can actually rent an apartment in Japan, be sure to consider what kind of furniture and appliances you like. Because the Japanese apartment gave me a lot of space to design my room -- it didn't come with any furniture! So, by the time I received the furniture I had ordered from IKEA, I had spent three nights sleeping on the floor of my apartment without any furniture. It is hard to describe how I felt when I lay down in my own bed after assembling all the furniture, because I don't know of anything better than a bed with a comfortable mattress. After I got the furniture, I really wanted to call my friends and invite them to go outside for friends meeting. At this time, another problem came, I didn't have a traffic card or a mobile card. Japan is a country with highly developed transportation, and almost everyone takes transportation with a blue transportation card. However, transportation cards are very easy to handle. I bought and recharged my card at the automatic ticket machine next to JR station.
Then comes a cycle that is almost impossible to understand. In Japan, you need a mobile phone number for a bank card; A bank card is required to apply for a mobile phone number. So, I applied for Linemo's mobile card, because it can be tied to overseas credit cards and can be obtained quickly just by applying online. After that, I successfully applied for my first bank card in Japan in Shiga Bank. Here to remind you not proficient in Japanese, please before handle all kinds of procedures, remember to ask a Japanese friend to help, so that you can accurately understand and get the need for help. When everything was settled, I went to city Hall to check in and make an appointment for the vaccine. Please note that in Japan, garbage classification is very strict, abide by the treaty also represents the quality of every international student to Japan.
As for the necessities of life, I have successfully completed. When I ate out for 10 days, a serious question occurred to me. Could I save some money by cooking at home? I was amazed at how expensive Japanese fruits and vegetables.